WildStar Reveals the Engineer, the Class That's a Blast

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with the Carbine development team for a look at WildStar's Medic and Engineer, and hear what they had to say about what makes these classes unique, powerful, and awesome in a purely WildStar kind of way. This article focuses on the Engineer, but if you wanna get an up-close look at the Medic be sure to take a look at my preview, which can be found here.

The Engineer is a heavily armored, long-range tank or damage class. The class is less mobile than some of the others in WildStar, but it more than makes up for that shortcoming with powerful attacks and extremely potent defenses. The Engineer is also capable of casting on the run, allowing it to use a run-and-gun play style to cover for the lack of agility. The Engineer is available to play as a Human (Exiles and Dominion), Granok, Mordesh, Chua, and Mechari. Perhaps most notably, the Engineer is the only pure pets class in WildStar. And, as any engineer should, it can create devices that are dropped into the world space to be used by the Engineer or its allies.

The Engineer's primary weapon is a heavy cannon that is fueled by unstable energy, gaining power as the energy flowing into the weapon is increased. This unstable energy is increased as the weapon is used and gains Volatility, which is the Engineer's primary resource. Volatility is gained as the Engineer uses her abilities, enhancing the effectiveness of her skills.

The Engineer also wears a special suit of heavy armor called the MK 4 Exo Suit. The Exo suit is like armor for the Engineer's armor, and can be activated once every few minutes to grant her a 'Super Form' for about 20 seconds, greatly reducing the damage taken by the Engineer, and buffing up her damage output. While activated, the Exo Suit also grants the Engineer a ton of Volatility, allowing her to blast off tons of extra-powerful attacks.

WildStar

The Engineer's pets are a staple of the class. Though the Esper will have some short-term pets, the Engineer's bot pets are permanent, and can be summoned on a very short cooldown. The Engineer has a choice of four bots, two of which can be active at any point (that's twice the normal amount of pets). Though the pets are AI-controlled, the player can direct the bots to attack, go to a certain spot, or activate certain abilities. The player also has control over the bot's behavior, choosing between passive, defensive, or aggressive.